Smokies gala a success

Smokies gala a successFriends of the Smokies raised $20,000 to support special projects in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at the “Spring for the Smokies” gala held last month in Waynesville.

More than 160 park supporters attended the fourth annual gala, a lively and spirited event. Silent and live auctions featuring finely crafted items, from art work to furniture, raised most of the money.

This year Friends of the Smokies expects to provide more than $2 million to support park projects and programs, including a trail endowment, education programs for local schoolchildren, exhibits for the new Oconaluftee Visitor Center, ongoing efforts to protect the park’s hemlock forests and support for the Cataloochee elk.

“Friends has done a great job raising friends and awareness for the park,” Park Superintendent Dale Ditmanson said at the event.

Reading Room

“In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

— George Orwell

We live in an age — the relativity of truth — in which Orwell’s adage seems as dated as monocles or top hats. Just as Darwin’s theory of evolution led to Social Darwinism, a philosophy pitting one human being against another with survival of the fittest as the supreme law for success, so Einstein’s theory of relativity changed popular philosophy and cultural mores as radically as it did the study of physics.

This Must Be the Place

Outside the Tipping Point Brewing windows on Main Street, heavy snowflakes cascaded upon downtown Waynesville last Wednesday night. Cars cautiously cruised through the intersection, with the snowfall increasing as the minutes ticked by.